USA > Georgia > Miscellanies of Georgia, historical, biographical, descriptive, etc > Part 17
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printed in the Act as one of the original Grantees of the Georgia Company.
Having such advantages as these on their side in the com- position of the Convention and perfect concert and under- standing among themselves besides, the Yazooists found it not difficult to carry things their own way in that body over the not very small sprinkling of good and true, but not particularly effective men, who were their fellow members. And their way and wish was to favor and protect the Yazoo speculation and save it from harm. Ignoring almost entirely the high duty of amending the Constitution for which they had been called together, they devoted themselves to aiding and screening the great Fraud. Their whole doings are dis- tent with internal evidence of this aim. It is apparent in what they did and in what they did not do. There is noth- ing which the speculators could have asked or wanted which either through the action or non-action of the Convention they did not get ; whilst of all that the people asked for and expected, not a whit was granted or done. What was most desirable for the Yazooists was plenty of undisturbed time for their vast and scattered operations of resale of their lands, and this the Convention secured to them as far as possible by changing the meeting of the Legislature from the old time, the first Monday in November, to the second Tuesday in January, for which change no reason can be im- agined except to give the Yazooists more than two full ad- ditional months to work off their lands before they could be overtaken and cut down by the dreaded rescinding vengeance of another and purer Legislature. Thus much as to what the Convention did. Still more strikingly sinister was the character of what it refused to do. To it as the most com- petent and all-potent Body known to our political system as well as the earliest in point of time to which an appeal could be made, the people had made their loud appeals. Thither they had sent up their complaints and petitions, their protests and fulminations against the sale, accompanied by abundant proofs of the now discovered corrupt means by
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which it was procured, justly regarding the Convention as clothed with transcendent powers which it was bound to exercise on such an occasion. But these supreme servants of the people literally snubbed their masters, taking no fur- ther notice of their views, wishes and demands than to bundle them up and devolve them in a mass on the ensuing Legis- lature* which they immediately proceeded, as we have just seen, to put off two months longer with no other object than to put this stupendous villainy as much as possible beyond the reach of its arm. But not only did the Convention thus refused to act against the Yazoo crime,-it refused even to speak against it. Not the slightest whisper of denunciation or disapproval came from its lips ; not the slightest opinion was breathed against it or the manner of its procurement. So the Yazooists were more than satisfied, having gotten the utmost they wanted,-a friendly inactivity and silence,-a kind refusal to do or say aught against them, and also a lengthened period of time for working out their programme of disposing of their lands at enriching prices.
Having thus extended to the Yazooists all the aid it could give, indeed, all they needed, and refused to say or do aught to their prejudice, the measure of the Convention's shame was full enough, even though it had not been guilty of the further shameless misdoing, of leaving almost untouched the real business for which it had been created, and coolly de- volving the same on another Convention, which, for that purpose it ordered to be elected in 1797. But perhaps we ought to be rather thankful for this delinquency of the Con- vention and the mode it adopted of making amends there- for: Since to this cause we owe a better work than could have been gotten at its hands, namely, the glorious old Con- stitution of 1798, the time-honored mental product of the illustrious Jackson and his anti-Yazoo compatriots, under which Georgia long grew and prospered, still clinging to it with increasing reverence for nearly seventy years until finally in these evil latter days it was, to her eternal sorrow,
* Benton's Ab., Vol. 3, p. 325.
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overthrown and thrust aside by a conquering despotism and unreasoning bayonets.
When the great disappointment occasioned by the above told gross infidelity of the Convention came upon the people, when they saw what a scurvy, pernicious trick had been played off on them from that high quarter and perceived themselves cheated, wronged, betrayed at every turn, first by their Legislature and then by their Convention, then it was that their fierce indignation rose to its acme. Then it was that enraged and bewildered, they felt intensely the need of somebody on whom they could repose a true and boundless trust, on whom they could fully rely to lead and contrive for them, to conquer and crush in their behalf in this matter. Then it was that they called upon their most idolized man, Gen. James Jackson, to leave his proud seat among the Conscript Fathers of the Union, the constitution- al counsellors of Washington, and to come at once to their help and headship. Then it was that with a sublime alacrity and devotion, he instantly responded to a call which his own fiery sentiments and denunciations had largely inspired. Without a moment's hesitation he resigned his Senatorship and dismounting, as it were, from the equestrian rank, trode the ground once more, a private soldier, merging himself with the people as one of themselves and literally fighting on foot in their midst from May to November, to which time the election had been changed by the recent Convention. Behold him there covered with dust, assailed by hatred, the target of the enemy's deadliest aims throughout the long canvass. Behold him, "leading, contriving for the people," toiling with tongue and pen, with mind and body, facing and defying every danger, devoting himself in every way, sparing himself in none: A spectacle, how replete with all that can be conceived of the sublime and beautiful in politi- cal conduct ! His work was done fearlessly and thoroughly. His spirit pervaded all Georgia and entered like a higher life the souls of her people. The enemy strived at first to make some show of a stand against him and his brave yeo-
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manry, but in vain. In all parts of the State the victory was complete and resulted in returning him and his friends and supporters to the Legislature by an overwhelm- ing majority in both branches.
Of course, in that Legislature he was the master spirit- the dictator and controller. But not much of study or effort was needed from him there. Execution alone was the watch- word and work. What had to be done was already prefixed and pronounced by the people at the polls, rendering the duty and action of their Representatives as plain, simple and unobstructed as it was grand, imposing and important. That duty was to repeal the Yazoo Act, to annul and rescind the Yazoo Sale as unconstitutional, fraudulent and void, a huge treachery, a heinous conspiracy of the buyers and sellers against the people, the offspring of bribery and corruption. This duty upon full and convincing proofs laid before them, they unflinchingly performed. Whilst the State was thus as- asserting and enforcing her unaltered ownership of the vast territories of which it had been sought to despoil her, she by the same Act disavowed all claim to the vile purchase money that had been thrust into her Treasury and directed it to be restored to those from whom it came or to whom it might belong. Moreover, to give the greater emphasis to her sovreign fiat of condemnation and annulment, she ordered every vestige of the accursed transaction to be obliterated from her records and the huge, pretentious enrollment of the Act itself to be given to the flames, consecrated although it was by accumulated high and solemn signatures and by the great Seal of Georgia pendant in massive wax. The high, unexampled, damnatory sentence was duly carried into exe- cution under the broad, bright sky, on the beautiful State House square, at Louisville, the new seat of Government, in the presence of the Governor and Legislature and a mighty assemblage of the people. And according to a tradition, which cannot de doubted, for it has descended to us uncon- tradicted in a continuous current from that period to the present day, a holy, religious eclat, significant of the Divine
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displeasure on the great iniquity, was shed over the scene by drawing down the consuming fire from heaven with a sun- glass before that immense and imposing multitude of wit- nessing eyes.
SECTION VIII.
It was on the 13th of February, 1796, that this crushing blow was struck. After it a long pause ensued, during which the new Yazooists stood still grasping their scrip, awaiting an event which they soon began to foresee,-and which, upon its happening, would at once put a more hope- ful face on their now ruined affairs. This event, alike fore- seen and wished for by them, was the same that the origi- nal speculators had so long deprecated and thwarted, namely, the cession by Georgia to the United States, of all her Western territory, including these very Yazoo lands : A cession which the present claimants very well knew would, whilst carrying the lands over to the Federal Gov- ernment, carry them at the same time cum onere, loaded with any and all claims to which they had previously be- come subject,-their own, the Yazoo claims, among the rest. An immediate result consequently of the cession would be the thronging of the Yazoo claimants to the Federal capital, and their becoming suitors to the Federal Government for the settlement of their claims.
But although such future cession to the United States un- doubtedly became a foregone conclusion in all minds quickly after Georgia's annulment of the Yazoo sale, yet more than two years elapsed before the first step towards it was taken, before any proposal or overture was made from either side. This delay arose from the fact that our Legislature in 1796, among other denunciations of the Yazoo sale, had pro- nounced it unconstitutional, wholly denying the competency of the Legislature under the then existing Constitution of the State to alienate her Indian domains. It was a clear corrollary from this Legislative pronouncement that no au- thority existed anywhere among us either to offer or enter-
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tain a proposition for such alienation. And not only was there no competent authority for the purpose then existing in the State, but none could be called into existence earlier than the year 1798-at which time the new Constitutional Convention ordered by that faithless one of May, 1795, was to be held : Until the holding of which, therefore, the State had no alternative but to remain silent and inactive on the whole subject of a cession. And Congress also, in de- ference to the aforesaid disclaimer of power by our Legisla- ture, observed a like silence and inaction, and refrained from any suggestion of a cession until after the Convention had been chosen and was within less than a month of the time of its assemblage. Then it was that Congress spoke, and on the 7th of April, 1798, passed an Act empowering the President of the United States to appoint three Commission- ers, whose duty, among other things, it should be to receive from such commissioners as should be appointed on the part of Georgia any proposals for the relinquishment or cession of the whole or any part of the territory claimed by the State lying out of its ordinary jurisdiction.
This act was undoubtedly passed in anticipation of the Convention's soon meeting, and in the confidence that that Body would receive it as an overture for a cession and honor it as such with a suitable response. Nor was this confidence disappointed. How was it possible it should have been ? For of that Convention the noble Jackson, although Gover- nor of the State at the time, was a member, master spirit there too as in the anti-Yazoo Legislature of 1796,-sur- rounded now as he was then, by his most choice, enlight- ened and pure-minded compatriots. From such men no botched work could come when a great public duty was to be performed. And certainly nothing could be more thorough and perfect than what actually came from their hands in re- gard both to the Yazoo subject and the State's Western terri- tory. What they did was to erect an express constitutional barrier against the sale of the territory of the State or any part of it to individuals or private companies unless a county or
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counties should have first been laid off including such terri- tory, and the Indian rights thereto should have been first extinguished also. Anybody can see at a glance how com- pletely this prohibition goes to the bottom of things, exter- minating the very roots and all possibility in the future of such crimes and misdoings as the two Yazoo sales had been. It is not in this provision, however, although it was wise and statesman-like in the highest degree, that we find the response that was wanted to the above mentioned Congres- sional overture. That presents itself in another clause which enables the Legislature to sell or contract to the United States all or any part of the State's Western do- main lying beyond the Chattahoochee, and then again still further in that third clause which authorizes the Legisla- ture to give its consent to the establishment by the United States of one or more governments westward of that river. Behold here implanted in our long honored Constitution of 1798, by the magnanimous men who then held sway in Geor- gia, the germ of the memorable cession of April, 1802, and of the two great States of Alabama and Mississippi.
These provisions show that the sense of the Convention was in favor of a cession to the United States. The first Legislature under the new Constitution, being of like opin- ion, proceeded at once to take measures for carrying out the object. On the 6th of December, 1799, it passed an Act appointing Commissioners to settle with those of the United States the terms of the cession ; to which Act the ensuing Legislature of 1800, made an amendment, adding to the list of Commissioners on the part of the State the name of Gen. Jackson, who was now filling a second gubernatorial term, but had just been chosen by the Legislature to the United States Senate as successor to Gen. Gunn, whose time was to expire on the 3d of March ensuing.
The great business now proceeded at a quickened pace. Assuming it as certain that the ultimate and early event would be a vast territorial cession, embracing the Yazoo lands, Congress had already in May, 1800, amended the
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aforementioned Act of April, 1793, by imposing on the Na- tional Commissioners therein created, a heavy and tedious additional duty which would and could only arise after the cession had been made,-the duty, namely, of investigating all claims against the lands ceded, of receiving from the claimants propositions for the compromise and settlement of their claims, and of laying a full statement of the whole, to- gether with their opinion thereon, before Congress for its decision thereon. Mr. Jefferson upon entering on the Presi- dency found the appointing of these Commissioners one of the first matters demanding his attention. His sense of the exceeding magnitude and importance of the duties to be de- volved on them is strongly attested by the men he selected. They were none other than three of the members of his Cab- inet-Mr. Madison, his Secretary of State, Mr. Gallatin, his Secretary of the Treasury, and Mr. Lincoln, his Attorney General. A grander and more imposing set of Commission- ers for any object or purpose whatever was never anywhere constituted, whether we regard the illustrious character and ability of the men or their ripe, thorough statesmanship and public experience, or the splendor and importance of the offices they were then actually holding near the Presi- dent. Their very appointment shows that Mr. Jefferson contemplated that in performing their trust as Commission- ers they were to be all the while acting under the responsi- bility that attached to them as components of his Adminis- tration.
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Fully worthy of association and conference with such men were the Commissioners on the part of Georgia,-Jackson, Baldwin, and Milledge,-whose functions, however, were to be more simple and of shorter continuance, confined to the single business of negotiating and signing the cession expected to be made by the State-a work which was con- pleted on the 24th day of April, 1802, whereby Georgia con- veyed to the United States all the territory stretching from her present Western boundary to the Mississippi river, and lying between the 31st and the 35th parallels of Latitude.
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In consideration of which the United States agreed to pay Georgia a million and a quarter of dollars, and to be at the expense of extinguishing for her the Indian occupancy on all the territory still retained by the State.
Long before the great bargain was brought to a close, the Yazoo claimants were astir wherever any of them were to be found in America or Europe. Either in person or by their agents or proxies, they were soon seen swarming around the United States Commissioners and overwhelming them with formal notices of their claims, warning them that if the Na- tional Government bought these lands from Georgia, it would have to buy them at its peril, subject to be supplanted and ousted by the older and better title which they asserted they already held from Georgia, the deeds and evidences of which they paraded before and deposited with the Commis- sioners, into the details of whose labors, at once immense and minute, there is no call upon us to enter in this tract. All that we need here is the general result at which they ar- rived and which, along with their opinion, they reported to Congress on the 15th of February, 1803, with full state- ments and accompanying documents, all which may be found spreading over many pages of the State Papers .* In their report the Commissioners mention the notorious fact, confirmed by the title papers the claimants had lodged with them, that the lands had all passed out of the original grantees and were now vested in second holders. These secondary holders said that they had bought them without knowledge or notice of the fraud, bribery and corruption that had contaminated the original purchase and, therefore, they claimed immunity for their title from these grounds of attack. The Commissioners, nevertheless, set forth fully all the criminating evidence which had come to their hands, being the same that was before the Rescinding Legislature, and in the body of their report is stated the very significant fact, "that all the deeds given by the Companies, which had been exhibited to the Commissioners, as well as all the sub-
American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. 1, pages 132, 159.
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sequent deeds, with only two or three exceptions, not only give a special instead of a general warranty, but have also a special covenant in the following words: 'And lastly, it is covenanted and expressly agreed and understood by and between the parties to these presents, that neither the grant- ors aforesaid, nor their heirs, executors or administrators, shall be held to any further or other warranty than is here- in before expressed, nor liable to the refunding any money in consequence of any defect in their title from the State of Georgia, if any such there should hereafter appear to be.'" Such a phenomenon as this on the very face of their deeds would have been enough in law to charge the claimants with the damning notice they denied, even in the absence of all the other convincing proofs against them that existed. Upon this fact, then, and all the other facts and circum- stances which came to their knowledge, the Commissioners were forced to the conclusion that the title of the claimants could not be supported.
But they procee led, nevertheless, to express their belief that "the interest of the United States, the tranquility of those who may hereafter inhabit that territory, and various equitable considerations which may be urged in favor of most of the present claimants, render it expedient to enter into a compromise on reasonable terms ;" and they thereupon proceed to submit to the consideration of Congress two plans of compromise, one proposing compensation to the claimants in land, the other in money-and in case the moneyed plan should be adopted, then that the claimants should be paid $2,500,000 in certificates of the Government, drawing interest, or $5,000,000 in non-interest bearing cer- tificates, payable out of the proceeds of the sale of the lands.
There is a very deep significance in this recommendation of a compromise by the commissioners. It amounts to their saying that, "although the claimants have no title and the Government is under no obligation, legal or equitable, to pay them a cent, yet as they will have a vast and interini-
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nable right and faculty of litigation, annoyance and vexa- tion against the future settlers on these lands under titles to be derived from the Government, which, among other huge evils, will have the effect of greatly retarding the sale, settlement and improvement of the lands,-that, therefore, it would be both for the interest of the Government and the interest and tranquility of the future settlers, -to extinguish these claims now even at the cost of five millions of dollars, rather than leave all these innumerable acres thus liable to permanent controversy and litigation, and every settler on them thus exposed to law suits, against which the Govern- ment would be bound to be at all the trouble and expense of defending him and of making him in the end a full remuner- ation and imdemnity, in case he should chance unexpectedly lose the land he had bought from the Government.
Such was the view the Commissioners took of this matter, now can the practical sense and wisdom of it be gainsaid.
Yet it prevailed not with Congress. For seven long years from 1803 to 1810, the claimants persisted to little purpose in beseiging and battering that body, which seemed, indeed, rather to harden than to give way under their ceaseless im- portunity. The terrible Napoleanic wars were all this while raging over Europe, threatening, striving, as it were, to draw our country, too, within their fearful vortex, out of which to keep her was Mr. Jefferson's great study, using to that end all upright and honorable means, even to such harsh and exhausting measures as the Embargo, the Re- striction and the Non-Intercourse ; in spite of all of which the dreaded engulfment came at last, under Mr. Madison's administration. Yet little recking of the country's trou- bles or of the mighty and distressful turmoil of the times, the Yazooists haunted Congress every session with their ill- odored, unrelenting claims, backed by the ablest and most influential lobby that had up to that time ever invested Congress ; sustained at the same time by a powerful North- ern a'lvocacy on the floor. But all would not do. The pe- 14 had not yet come when the people's Representatives
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could be gotten to throw a propitiating sop of millions drawn from the sweat of their brow, in order to buy off a vile claim pronounced to be at once the offspring of crime, fraud and corruption, and to be devoid also of all legal quality and character, by which it could demand and coerce support.
If at this remote day any wonder should be felt that the recommendation of a compromise by a Commission composed of such great men and high functionaries as Madi- son, Gallatin, and Lincoln, should have been so unavailing with the House, where the Bill for the proposed appropria- tion had to originate, -let it be recalled how lofty and un- bending the temper of that House was in those days in maintaining its independence of thought and action, especi- ally on questions of taking money out of the Treasury, that is to say, out of the people's pockets ; secondly, how fiercely public and Congressional rage then burned against the mon- strous Yazoo crime; and lastly, that that prodigy of parlia- mentary oratory and debating talent, John Randolph, was there from the outset to the end-in all the pride of young manhood, yet ripe genius and stored, cultivated mind, lashing the House up all the while to its indignant duty with his versatile, unsparing, exhaustless powers of eloquence and argument, persuasion and invective.
Weary of long waiting and continued disappointment, to which they saw no end on their present tack, the Yazooists determined at last on a new departure -- on demonstrating to Congress in a manner, at once practical and astounding, that their title was one capable of being supported in law, the opinion of the three Cabinet Commissioners and of the ma- jority of the House to the contrary notwithstanding, and that their claims, in the event of being thrust out of the National Legislature, were sure of finding a favorable recep- tion in the sanctuary of the National Courts. The pro- ceedure instituted and prosecuted to a close with a view to this demonstration long stood out to view as the most erratic and lawless judicial phenomenon ever known in our history. .
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